In 1991, as
Congress worked on reauthorization of the
Surface Transportation Act, the
Bluefield-to-Huntington Highway Association wanted an Interstate Highway, which would be called I-73, to run from
Detroit, Michigan, to
Charleston, South Carolina. In
West Virginia, the highway would run alongside
US 52, which was only two lanes but was still being used to transport
coal from mines to barges on the
Ohio River. The influential
Robert Byrd, at the time West Virginia's senior senator, chaired the
Senate Appropriations Committee, but even Byrd said funding for such a highway would be hard to find. In North Carolina, Marc Bush of the Greensboro Area Chamber of Commerce admitted the plan would benefit his area but said it was not a priority.
ISTEA defined
High Priority Corridor 5, the "
I-73/74 North-South Corridor from Charleston, South Carolina, through
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to
Portsmouth, Ohio, to
Cincinnati, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan." This would provide for a single corridor from Charleston, splitting at Portsmouth, with I-74 turning west to its current east end in Cincinnati, and I-73 continuing north to Detroit. The route through High Point was approved in May 1993. By November of that year, however, an organization called Job Link, made up of business leaders from northern North Carolina and southern Virginia, wanted a major highway to connect
Roanoke with the Greensboro area. It could be I-73, the group said, but did not have to be. In April 1995,
John Warner, who chaired the Senate subcommittee that would select the route of I-73, announced his support for the Job Link proposal. This distressed Winston-Salem officials who were counting on I-73, though Greensboro had never publicly sought the road. But an aide to Senator
Lauch Faircloth said the 1991 law authorizing I-73 required the road to go through Winston-Salem. Faircloth got around this requirement, though, by asking Warner to call the highway to Winston-Salem I-74. In May, Warner announced plans to propose legislation that made the plan for two Interstates official. The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 added a branch from
Toledo, Ohio, to
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, via the
US 223 and
US 127 corridors. (At the time, US 127 north of
Lansing was part of
US 27.) It also gave details for the alignments in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I-73 and I-74 were to split near
Bluefield, West Virginia, joining again between Randleman and Rockingham; both would end at Charleston. The
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) approved the sections of I-73 and I-74 south of
I-81 in Virginia (with I-74 ending at I-73 near
Myrtle Beach) on July 25, 1996, allowing for them to be marked once built to
Interstate standards and connected to other Interstate routes. The final major change came with the
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998 (TEA-21), when both routes were truncated to
Georgetown, South Carolina. North Carolina took the lead in signing highways as I-73 following AASHTO's approval in 1997 and since has approved construction projects to build new sections of the Interstate Highway. I-73 is essentially complete from
Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro to just south of Ellerbe. Two new sections of what will be I-73 are being completed, the section from the US 220/
NC 68 junction to Piedmont Triad International Airport and the section south of Ellerbe to the junction with
US 74 west of Rockingham. I-74 runs concurrent with I-73 from north of Asheboro to Rockingham, whence it will follow US 74 to
Wilmington. The only other progress in building I-73 can be seen in Virginia and South Carolina. In 2005 Virginia completed an
environmental impact statement (EIS) for its recommended route for I-73 from I-81 in Roanoke to the North Carolina border. The
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approved the EIS report in April 2007. Virginia can now go ahead and draw up plans to construct the highway and proceed to build it once funds are obtained. South Carolina also has shown recent interest in building its section of I-73 with a corridor selected for the route from I-95 to
Myrtle Beach in 2006 and a final decision on how the highway should be routed north of I-95 to the North Carolina border in July 2007. In January 2006, the South Carolina state legislature introduced bills to construct I-73 as a toll highway. It is hoped a guaranteed stream of revenue will allow it to build its section of I-73 within 10 years. The FHWA approved South Carolina's proposal on August 10, 2007. Ohio and Michigan both abandoned further environmental studies on their portions of I-73. It is important to note that most of the I-73 corridor in both of these states follows existing freeways or highways scheduled to be upgraded to freeways under plans that predate I-73. Furthermore, West Virginia has rebuilt its section of the corridor as a multilane surface highway instead of an Interstate-quality freeway, further preventing I-73 from going beyond Virginia. On May 24, 2016, Ronald "Skip" Ressel Jr., president of the I-73 committee serving the Martinsville area, announced that he would not pursue building I-73 through his part of the state; a proposed corridor would follow the same general route, however, and be maintained by the Commonwealth of Virginia. and much of its funding has been used for other projects. In a July 2024 presentation to the
Commonwealth Transportation Board, which has ultimate authority over all transportation projects in the state, VDOT recommended the board rescind its original 2001 approval of I-73's routing. VDOT stated that the project's earmarked federal funding has been repurposed, and additional funding had not materialized and was unlikely to be found. At the September 2024 meeting, the project was suspended. ==Exit list==